


the sky above them

by errantia (ironyman)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: (author is slightly ashamed), ...but the focal character isn't the inquisitor, Dysphoria, F/F, F/M, Feels, Identity Crises, Modern Girl in Thedas, Trans Female Character, Work In Progress, actually yes totally a self-insert, author has no idea what they're doing, author is not ashamed, lots of swearing, not a self-insert, pure self-indulgence, updates glacially
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-05 12:29:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5375237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironyman/pseuds/errantia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens in Thedas stays in Thedas. Ravi's sister has a strange mark on her hand, nothing makes sense, and apparently it's up to the two of them to save the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. broken windows

_Have they not observed the sky above them, how We have constructed it and beautified it, and how there are no rifts therein?_ The Qur’an, 50:06

People were screaming outside again.

I huddled into myself, tucking my hands into my armpits, shivering despite the sweltering heat of the New York summer. I twitched at every crash that sounded from the street, every bark of a dog or a man. I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. I couldn’t tell the difference anymore between my shudders and the shaking and struggling of the girl in my arms, between the hitch of her breaths and the jolts of the building under our feet.

“Shh, shh,” I whispered urgently. “Shh, shona, it’s okay, we can’t let them find us.”

“Don’t fucking baby me,” she snarled into my chest, “Let me go! I have to – where’s Amma, where’s Baba?”

“Shh now, shh, you have to stay quiet. Amma’s fine, she’ll be up soon and it’ll be okay.”

“No–“ My sister squirmed in my grasp. I gripped her tighter, startled by a sudden crash. That was the door, then. My muscles were locked tight and shaking with the urge to run, to burst out of the corner and – and I didn’t know. Throw Aliyah over my shoulder and scale down the fire escape. Go downstairs and protect my family, like a real man. But I knew what I had to do. I’d promised. I’d promised.

“Ravi—let me go!” Aliyah’s voice rose to a shriek, and she twisted nearly out of my grip, clawing at me with blunt fingernails. I shushed her again, but she’d stopped – the screaming I heard now was coming from downstairs. My father’s voice rose over the sound, not shouting but speaking loudly, and then the screaming cut off. Silence. I was on my feet before I was conscious of making a movement, Aliyah clutching at me to keep her balance as she was forced upright.

“Oh my god,” she whispered. All I could hear was her harsh breaths and mine, jagged and out of time.

And then, Amma began to wail.

“No. No!” Aliyah struggled against me again, jerking finally out of my grasp. I grabbed after her, but she was dashing out of the room, the tail of her long skirt whisking around the doorjamb.

I was after her immediately. My shoes thumped against the splintering wood of the stairs. Someone was talking, someone with a deep voice and an accent, but I could hardly make out the words over the blood rushing in my ears.

Then, my sister’s voice, stronger and more authoritative than I’d ever heard. “What’s going on here?”

“Run—“ Amma cried. “Run while you can, warn your brother—“

I took a choking breath and stepped through the door.

“Keep the sacrifice still,” a too-tall man was saying in that deep voice. I saw his silhouette, stark against the green walls, saw my mother held in place by – something – her arms outstretched, her face tear-streaked and set defiant, I saw Aliyah with her skirt billowing, mid-step towards our mother. I saw the tall man turn around –

That’s all I remember.

  


  


“You’re lying.”

“I swear! I don’t know what this is, I don’t know where I am!”

My eyes open slowly. My head rests on freezing stone, my hands twisted up uncomfortably in front of me. Jeez, where did I fall asleep? What’s Aliyah doing here?

“We need her, Cassandra.”

An unfamiliar voice. Suddenly, everything snaps into place, and I sit up with a jolt. What the hell – where am I?

“What happened?” My sister’s voice breaks, and the hooded figure moves aside, letting her into my view. She looks awful – her hijab half falling off, her skin covered in red scrapes under rips in her clothes. Her hands are tied, too, and something green is flashing from her left, blinding. She sees me at the same time as I see her, and she lurches onto her knees. “Dada!”

“You know her?” The black-haired woman twists sharply and steps up toward me. Not all the way to me – there are bars between me and Aliyah, trapping her with these strangers. Trapping me in a tiny cell.

“Do I – that’s my sister! What are you doing to her?” I demand. “Where are we?”

“Do you remember what happened?” asks the woman in the hood. Her voice is softer, gentler, accented with – was that French? “How this began?”

I swallow and stare at the stone floor, trying to collect my thoughts, trying to figure just that out. I can’t do anything right now – my hands are tied, quite literally – so I might as well play along. “We were – we were at home. There was someone in our house, I think, people were trying to break in. He was hurting our mother.”

“That wasn’t our house,” Aliyah interrupts. “I don’t know what that was – it was like some sort of a nightmare, there were these things chasing me, and a woman…”

I look up at her again, horror dawning on me. Our walls aren’t green. “I don’t–“ I say hoarsely.

“You wouldn’t wake up, I had to drag you. The woman helped.”

“A woman?” one of our interrogators asks, but the darker woman – what is she wearing? it looks like some kind of historically incorrect ren-faire armor – stops her.

“Go to the forward camp, Leliana,” she says.

Leliana nods and turns, but – “You’re fucking kidding me,” Aliyah says flatly.

Both of our imprisoners turn to look at her with varying shades of amusement and indignation. Okay, we’re dead now. I close my eyes and slump back. What is she doing?

“You’re–“ My sister cuts herself off, staring blankly from one woman to the other. “You can’t be _that_ Leliana. That’s not possible.”

“What are you talking about?” I hiss at my sister. She doesn’t reply.

Leliana keeps her eyes fixed on Aliyah. “Many people have had to revise their definitions of ‘possible’ in the past three days,” she says lightly. “Perhaps you will have to join us.” After an infinity (during which my though process is still pretty much comprised of question marks), she looks back at the dark-haired woman. “Cassandra. You’ll take them to the rift?”

“Yes. Go.”

Leliana nods and goes. The woman she called Cassandra unlocks the door to my cell and hauls me to my feet. Aliyah gets up before Cassandra can give her the same treatment, and – tripping for a moment over the hem of her skirt – rushes to my side. I can’t hug her, so I settle for elbowing her in the side. She smiles uncertainly and elbows me back, eyes flitting up and down my body like she’s making sure I’m still there in one piece.

“Are you having the same hallucination that I am?” she whispers to me as Cassandra herds us up a flight of stone stairs.

“I think so?” I mutter back. “What are you going on about?”

“You don’t – of course you don’t.” Aliyah runs her hands over her face. “I’m pretty sure – no, I _know_ —“

I don’t get to find out what she knows, though, because enormous doors open before us, and I’m confronted with the last thing I expected to see.

Gone is New York City, the familiar shapes of streets and skyscrapers. Instead, scraping the sky in front of me is a breathtaking mountain range – taller than the Appalachians, crags of rock and snow instead of hills. Sprawling before us, a small village winds its way to an ancient-looking stone bridge, a collection of cabins constructed of wood and ramshackle straw roofs rather than glass or concrete. And the sky, the sky is bigger than I’ve ever seen, and so, so blue.

Except for the enormous, poison-green _welt_ that hovers in the sky between two peaks.

“We call it the Breach,” Cassandra says from between us. I can practically hear the Capital Letter. “It’s a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with every hour. It’s not the only such rift. Just the largest.” I can’t tear my eyes away from it. It’s a door into the – what? This isn’t possible.

But I’m getting less and less convinced that this is a hallucination. The bite of the freezing cold wind, the smell of old blood and frost and _people_ , the jumbled sounds and colors – my imagination isn’t this good. I’ve never even had a dream this vivid.  

“How?” I whisper. I’m not even sure what I’m asking about.

Cassandra shrugs, her armor clanking. (That’s something I think my imagination could never have done justice to, either, the bulk of the layers of cloth under her breastplate, the smears of dust and blood ground into the dull metal.) “They were caused by the explosion at the Conclave.”

“Conclave?” I say, at the same time that Aliyah rips her eyes from the Breach and says, “Explosion?”

Fuck. There had been an explosion yesterday. At home, in New York. That’s what I’d thought the people breaking into our house had been angry about. No one knew what had happened, just that something had gone _boom_ at the United Nations. Dozens of people had died, including the Secretary-General. The investigation hadn’t turned anything up yet, but by the day after, the media had decided it was terrorists. But… what if that had something to do with whatever this was?

“This was more than a mere explosion,” Cassandra says darkly. “Every time the breach expands, that mark on your hand grows, and it is killing you.” She nods to my sister, and my eyes shoot to her hand. That green light that I’d seen – it’s still there. It’s on her hand? No – Aliyah brings her bound hands up to stare at them – it’s _in_ her hand?! “It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn’t much time.”

“The – the key? To what? What _is_ it?” Aliyah looks horrified.

“To closing the Breach. Whether that’s possible is something we shall discover shortly.”

“You think she did this?” I demand. “We don’t know where we are, we haven’t a clue what happened, you say this mark is _killing_ her, and you think she did this to herself?”

“Not intentionally,” Cassandra allows, but her eyes are narrowed at me. “Your _sister_ pulled you out of a rift, fell unconscious, and woke up with no explanation. Someone is responsible, and you two are our only suspects.”

“Will helping you save her?” I ask. There’s something roaring in my ears.

“Do I have a choice?” Aliyah says quietly. She’s still looking at her hand. The green light from it reflects oddly off the curves of her face.

Cassandra regards us unsympathetically. “We have no way of knowing.”

She leads us down to the snow and the staring people, and we have no choice but to follow.

My sister stays close to me, and I’m glad of it. As she got older, she made more and more of a point of ignoring me – asserting her independence, I guess. Proving that she doesn’t need her big brother to protect her, now that she’s the ripe old age of eighteen and I spend most of my time a whole borough “away” at college. But like so many times in my life, I’m pretty sure that playing protector right now is the only thing that’s keeping me from collapsing, overwhelmed.

This is just too much. The sun reflects off of the snow and right into my eyes. Between the sounds and, Christ, the smells, my head is swimming. I feel like everyone’s looking at me and Aliyah. They probably are. Everyone here is dressed oddly, like Cassandra and Leliana are, in rough, loose clothing or pieces of leather and metal stitched together into armor. Even without the Breach-green mark on Aliyah’s hand, we stick out like a sore thumb between my jeans and sweatshirt and her floral-print hijab.

“They have decided your guilt,” says Cassandra quietly, scanning over the crowd. “They need it. The people of Haven mourn our Most Holy, Divine Justinia, head of the Chantry. The Conclave was hers. It was a chance for peace between mages and templars.” Mages? What the – are we in some kind of LARP community? And what’s a Chantry? None of this makes sense. “She brought their leaders together; now they are dead. We lash out, like the sky.”

I blink away images of graffiti and broken windows, of bruises on my sister’s wrists and Amma dabbing away blood from Baba’s nose.

“So there’s a war?” Aliyah asks quietly. “Between mages and – well, everyone else?”

“There has been enough fighting for the last months to make it one,” Cassandra says. “Yes, there is a war. But we _must_ think beyond ourselves, as Justinia did. The Breach threatens us all. It must be sealed.”

Cassandra turns to my sister, and her eyes soften for the first time. She’s actually kind of gorgeous under the scowl, I notice absently. “There will be a trial. I can promise nothing more.” She’s holding a long, wicked-looking knife, and my heart jumps in my chest – okay, someone takes her roleplaying seriously – but she just cuts the rope holding Aliya’s hands together. She winces and rubs at her wrists, angry red from rope burn.

Cassandra leaves my hands bound, though. Thanks.

She looks at me, though, stone-faced once again. “I suppose you will follow your sister no matter what I order you to do?”

I nod. Duh. Aliyah grips my wrist. Cassandra makes an irritated noise in her throat.

“Very well. Come – it is not far.”

Neither my sister nor I say much as she leads us through the small town and up a hill. Aliyah doesn’t let go of my wrist, and every now and then I think she’s going to speak, but she looks at Cassandra and stays quiet. I can’t stop shivering. Whether it’s because of the cold (because sweet _Jesus_ it’s freezing, I’m dressed for a house with a broken heater, not a snowy mountain) or the sheer confusion that keeps shocking through my body, I don’t know. I keep my eyes fixed on the path, my mind running in circles and circles and circles.

Something like lightning cracks, and Aliyah’s hand slips off my arm. She cries out, falls to her knees. I catch her as best as I can with my bound hands, let her prop herself on my shoulder and lever herself back up. Her hand is glowing even brighter, bolts of bright green lacing their way up her arm. She’s biting her lip so hard that it’s white.

“The pulses are coming faster now,” Cassandra says quietly.

“Fix this,” I demand through a tight throat, staring at the woman. She purses her lips and doesn’t reply.

“I’m fine,” Aliyah lies, and keeps walking.

 

My day gets even worse when a bridge explodes out from under me.

I’m more than happy to stay behind Cassandra when the demons appear. The river being frozen was much better than the alternative, but it’s still a hard, painful fall. I heave myself up, gasping for breath, and turn to take cover behind the broken crates that fell with me. But Aliyah, of course, has other ideas.

“Shit,” I mutter. She’d found a sword somewhere, a literal sword, a hunk of metal three or so feet long, and is holding it out in front of her like a goddamn epée. “Aliyah! Get back!”

“I’ve got this,” she shouts back, taking a swing at the – oh, hell – seven-foot-tall dementor-thing gliding towards us. “I took fencing last year for P.E.!” She half-turns to grin at me, and I want to smack my forehead in exasperation, but the dementor is reaching out, her sword is drooping, _fencing_ and a couple years of taekwondo are not enough to protect her, she’s going to get killed. I leap forward, bound hands outstretched. Something uncurls in my gut, a lump rises in my throat, heat slides across my nerves –

My vision goes white. My hands feel like they’re on fire. The dementor reels back from Aliyah, flames eating away at its shell. My hands are on fire.

My _hands_ are on _fire_.

There’s a heavy whoosh of air, and the dementor collapses, Cassandra’s sword stuck halfway through it. She heaves back, then lunges. Another whistle of movement. I blink. Her sword rests two inches from my neck. I gasp out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

“Put it out,” she says, her voice sharper than her blade. “ _Now_.”

I stare down at her sword, then further down at my hands. They’re still on fire. Literally. Not figuratively so much anymore; it’s more of a strange prickling in my nerves.

“I—“

“Ravi—“

“Now!”

I close my fists, like I’m grabbing something, pulling back both physically and with that weird prickling heat, and the fire goes out.

“What the _fuck_ was that?” I sputter.


	2. with what is better

_"Repel (evil) with what is better. Then will he, between whom and thee was hatred, become as it were thy friend and intimate. And no one will be granted such goodness except those who exercise patience and self-restraint."_ The Qur'an, 41:34

 

“You’re a mage.”

“I’m – no, I’m not!” My body is threaded with sparks, fizzing up and down my spine, lacing down my arms. There’s a storm in my stomach, fire in my fingertips, my heart feels like ice. “There isn’t even—I’ve never—“

“Ravi,” Aliyah whispers. Her eyes are wide against her pale face. She reaches out and touches my hand – jerks her fingers back like it’s a hot iron – then settles back and grips it tightly. “You’re a mage?”

I look down at her, head spinning. “I don’t even know what that means,” I hiss. “What are you talking about?”

“Play along,” she mouths at me, then turns to Cassandra, still holding my hand. “I – we’re not from around here,” she tries to explain. Understatement of the year. “My brother’s never shown any signs of magic before – we don’t have Templars where we come from, to find mages – it must be something latent, or weak.”

Cassandra looks incredulous. “How old are you,” she snaps at me, “twenty? It is impossible that you would have never known.”

“I’m twenty-two,” I mutter, then say more clearly, “and I have even less idea of what’s going on than you do.”

The woman harrumphs, but sheathes her sword. “Very well. There is nothing that can be done of it now, in any case, and I cannot protect you. You may cast what spells you can; I cannot expect you to be defenseless. There is a staff you may use there.” She nods to my left, where a broken crate is, indeed, spilling long wooden shafts on the ice. I hesitate, then, without taking my eyes off of her, step to the side and grab one at random. It feels unwieldy, but I heft it in my hand and set its butt on the ground.

Hey, on the bright side, the magic-fire-whatever burned off my rope handcuffs. I’m free!

“And you?” Cassandra asks Aliyah, mouth twisted into a moue of distaste. “Do you even know how to use that?” She nods at the sword, now resting tip-down on the ground.

Aliyah makes a sheepish face. “Not… really?”

A disgusted noise. “Very well. Try these.” She pulls two daggers out, one from – her armpit? and the other from a boot, and proffers them to my sister.

Aliyah looks over the moon with joy. “A rogue?” she whispers, and then snaps into a clumsy ninja pose.

Cassandra rolls her eyes, and we keep moving.

The staff is heavier than it looks, and unbalanced, with a weird twiggy formation on one end. It’s a little longer than I’m tall, and I learn quickly that using it like I would a walking stick not only looks silly, but sends weird shocks through me every time one end hits the ground. I end up carrying it awkwardly, almost horizontal to the ground.

“Okay,” I say quietly, scooting closer to Aliyah. “I think that around _now_ is when you tell me what in the Lord’s name is going on.

She swallows. “Okay,” she echoes. “This is going to sound completely crazy, but I think – I think we’re in the world of Dragon Age?” She winces as she says the words.

“The world of what.” My voice is flat.

“D-Dragon Age,” she repeats. “You know, that _silly video game_ I play a lot? With the Gray Wardens, and Kirkwall, and that one character you have a total crush on, Isabela, and…”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“No?”

I stop short to stare at her. Cassandra keeps walking, ignoring us, and after a second’s pause (for dramatic effect) I’m forced to jog back and catch up with her.

“Listen, that lady we met earlier? Leliana? She was one of the companions in the first game,” Aliyah tries to explain. The knives Cassandra gave her sit easily in her hands, like she’s forgotten about them. And the weird green mark on her left hand. “I, uh, romanced her once, actually. She was pretty great. And Cassandra? She’s part of the framing device in the second one – Varric is telling the story that you play out to her. And this whole thing with mages and templars, it makes sense, okay? I never played the third game that came out a few years ago, but at, at the end of Dragon Age II, this guy Anders blew up the Chantry, he was trying to start a mage rebellion—“

“Over there,” Cassandra calls sharply, and I look over in horror to see another two dementors prowling a valley we’re about to come up on. “If we flank them, we may gain the advantage.”

I stare wild-eyed at the crazy woman. Flank them?! What about, say, turning around and taking a detour around them? This isn’t a, a stupid video game that my sister spends too much of her time on, this is real life. As far as I can tell.

But Cassandra is already running down the slope of the hill, sword and shield at the ready, and Aliyah is taking a deep breath and following her.

“Shit,” I mutter, “shit, shit.” I make as if to follow her – I’m holding a staff, at least, maybe I can hit them with it or something? – and then I remember. I’m a _mage_ , apparently. Maybe I can try magic.

This is it, I’ve finally gone off the deep end.

I breathe in slowly and close my eyes, searching for the fire that had been filling my veins not five minutes ago. I feel nothing for a moment, and my eyes spring open. Aliyah’s down there, lashing carefully out at one of the dementors with her borrowed knife, shit.

There it is.

Fire crackles down my wrist to the staff, and I move as if from muscle memory, pointing it at a dementor. I don’t even pause to watch the blow connect, spinning the staff from one hand to another, my feet moving in a pattern like dancing, turning and aiming and letting the energy flow out from me. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before, nothing I could begin to describe, and at the same time it’s so painfully _familiar_. Like I’ve been dreaming of this my whole life, but now – now I’m awake.

The last creature goes up in smoke, and I plant the staff in the ground, breathing hard. My pulse _thrums_.

Cassandra regards me, her expression unreadable. “No mage indeed,” she says quietly.

There’s something grey on Aliyah’s knives, a fresh rip in her skirt. Do dementors bleed?

“Are you okay?” I ask her. She grins up the bank at me. Her face is flushed pink, her headscarf around her shoulders and only her cap protecting her modesty. She looks happier, more alive than I’ve seen her in a long time.

“Hell yes,” she says. “You?”

I feel more alive than I’ve been in a long time.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Let us move along,” Cassandra says, but her scowl has softened slightly.

  


In the next twenty minutes, I discover three things:

First, I can also cast lightning. _Wicked._

It feels different from fire, and acts different, too. It dances between the dementors ( _shades_ , Aliyah calls them, with a glance at Cassandra for confirmation) and the flickering-green wraiths when they’re close enough. It comes a little more freely to me, from my fingertips rather than my core; I figure out how to send bolts of electricity with a loose gesture of my free hand, how to spit flames from the end of my staff with a forceful motion, how to turn either one white-hot and stinging with a little more effort, extra focus from somewhere behind my temples.

It’s unsettling as all hell, but God does it feel good.

Second, a little bit of track and field goes a long way. I mainly play defensive, keeping demons and dementors away from my sister – and Cassandra, when her shield is pointed the wrong way – but after a fight or two, I find more and more that Aliyah is just too quick to need my help that much. What she lacks in aim and force behind her blows, she makes up for in agility.

Not to mention, even when we’re not fighting, Cassandra sets a brutal pace. I’m out of breath in no time; Aliyah is smug to no end.

Third of all, I’m getting less and less convinced that Aliyah is wrong about the Dragon Age thing. It’s either that or Lord of the Rings. There’s an _elf_. And a _dwarf._ Like, not like Tyrion Lannister dwarf, like fuckin’ Gimli dwarf. (He doesn’t have a beard, but I think the chest hair on display more than makes up for it. And I’d been so happy when Cassandra’s armor had made sense – I guess at least the ridiculous armor is on a guy this time.)

Oh, and one more thing. Apart from just causing her pain and panic, the mark on Aliyah’s hand has an actual function: closing what Cassandra calls ‘Rifts’ into the ‘Fade’. The bald elf grabs her hand as the last shade falls, and thrusts it towards the sky, towards the green – hole – thing. She cries out in surprise and nearly trips, but a crackle of lightning shoots from the rift, to connect with the green-hole-thing in her palm.

“What are you doing?” I cry, stepping forward as quickly as I can, but before I can finish my sentence, the rift expands, then sucks in on itself. There’s a sound like an explosion, and the rift is gone.

Aliyah snatches her hand back from bald-mage-elf-guy. “What did you do?” she asks.

Bald-mage-elf-guy smiles cryptically. “I did nothing,” he says. “The credit is yours.”

“I… what did I do, then?” Aliyah clutches her hand, turning it over back and forth.

“Whatever magic opened the breach in the sky also caused that mark,” bald-mage-elf-guy says. “I theorized the mark may also have been able to close the rifts; it appears I was correct.”

“Meaning it could also close the Breach itself,” Cassandra says pointedly.

“Possibly,” BMEG says, inclining his head. “It seems you hold the key to our salvation.”

“Good to know!” the dwarf cuts in. “Here I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever.”

I like this guy already.

“Varric Tethras,” he adds. “Rogue, storyteller, and occasional unwelcome tagalong.”

“And… dwarf,” I say to Aliyah. She nods. “Varric Tethras, dwarf, and a bald mage _elf_.” She stifles a snort, and nods again.

“Never seen a dwarf before, kid?” Varric asks, cocking an eyebrow. I shake my head.

“Or an elf, it seems,” BMEG adds shrewdly. I shrug, shake my head again. Wrong thing to do, apparently – Aliyah clears her throat next to me.

“My brother and I are… not from around here,” she says awkwardly.

“That is apparent,” the elf says, eyeing her hijab and my jeans, the awkward way I carry my staff – his is somehow stuck to his back. “But… if I may ask, ‘brother’?”

My stomach drops. “Y…es?” Aliyah says, glancing from me to him. “Problem?”

“No, of course not.” BMEG smiles. It’s not reassuring. “In any case, if there are to be introductions, my name is Solas.” Damn, I have to stop calling him BMEG.

“Aliyah,” says Aliyah, and, when I don’t say anything, “and my _brother_ is Ravi.”

I nod, but my stomach is still roiling. What the hell was that about? He can’t – there’s no way that he could tell from one glance that we’re from a little farther away than the next country over. And the way he stressed “brother” – he couldn’t – there was no way. No. He couldn’t, he can’t know about me.

He mustn’t know about me.

“I am pleased to see you still live,” BMEG – Solas – is saying.

“He means, ‘I kept that mark from killing you while you slept,’” Varric says helpfully.

Cassandra makes a disgusted noise. That seems to be her thing. “Solas is an apostate,” she says. I’ve got no idea what an apostate is, but it sounds like a dirty word. “He is… well-versed in such matters.”

“Technically, all mages are now apostates, Cassandra,” Solas says. “My travels have allowed me to learn much of the Fade, far beyond the experience of any Circle mage. I came to offer whatever help I can give with the Breach. If it is not closed, we are all doomed, regardless of origin.” Yikes, that last part seemed like it was pointed right at me.

“Cassandra,” he adds, “you should know: the magic involved here is like none I have ever seen. Your marked prisoner is no mage; indeed, I find it difficult to imagine any mage having such power.”

“Understood,” Cassandra says tightly. “We must get to the forward camp quickly.”

The two of them set off without another word, and Aliyah scrambles to catch up. I stand there for a moment, staring at the air where there had been a hole in the world a moment ago. There’s a little ripple, if I squint, like a heat mirage. Like a scar.

I look down from studying the air to see Varric studying me. “Never seen a dwarf or an elf before, huh, kid?” he asks. I shake my head mutely. “Not even in the Circle?”

“I… wasn’t in a Circle,” I admit. He leads me down a hill, following my sister. The ground is half sleet, half ice, and I pick my way down carefully, wary of how little traction my trainers have. “I don’t even know what that is.”

“You’re from pretty far away, then,” Varric says. I look back at him; there’s a twinkle in his eye. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I won’t tell.”

Well, now I’m worrying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. truth with falsehood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahaha, guess who's updating! that's right, it's this guy, what, a year later?
> 
> honestly, this was just a really hard chapter to write. funny, because the last scene in this is kinda why i wanted to write this whole thing in the first place? but then i got caught up with like am i making too big a deal out of this -- am i making not enough of a big deal out of this -- et cetera -- et cetera -- and then i wanted to have a higher word count, but this is about the length of the previous chapters, so ANYWAY i'm just gonna post it so that i can start the actual story and go back to enjoying writing this instead of stressing about it. phew. here goes.

_“Do not mix Truth with falsehood, Nor knowingly conceal the Truth.” The Qur’an, 02:42._

_  
_

You know, despite all Bioware's hype about their new graphics engine, even the trailers and gifs that I've seen don't hold a candle to the sight of this world.

“Now!” Cassandra shouts.

The Pride demon bellows in protest as she rips her sword out from its body, then disappears in a hissing flash of green mist. Just like that, from four-eyed colossus of jutting edges to that much matcha powder. Aliyah pivots on one foot and thrusts her hand toward the air, towards the swirling green hole – a spear of lightning threads from her hand, up, up – there’s a massive concussion, and I’m thrown backwards, hitting the ground hard.

The wind’s completely knocked out of me. I gasp for breath, clawing at the ground. I fumble, grab my staff; funny how it’s already the first thing I reach for. Well, second. I use it to lever myself off the ground, stumbling forward even before the black clears from my vision. “Aliyah!” I choke.

There’s no response. I lurch forward the few steps to where she’s lying crumpled on the ground. Jesus Christ, she’s bleeding – between the dementors and the enormous demon, she’s covered in wounds. There’s even blood dripping onto her shoulder, where’s that coming from?

Oh. Me.

Jesus parallel-parking Christ.

I fall to my knees, grasping at Aliyah’s shoulder. She’s breathing, and I mutter a quick thanks to the Lord and unhook one of the red flasks Cassandra had given me from my belt. Before I can try to drip it into her mouth, though, a hand settles onto my shoulder.

I look up so fast I get a crick in my neck. It’s just the BMEG, looking down at me with a kind expression on his face. “It’s all right,” he says smoothly, and holds out a hand. Aliyah’s body glows with a greenish light – well, a little more green than the Breach-light already on her – and I can see scrapes closing on her skin. My head’s still spinning, though, and – why is her face swimming like that?

“It is all right, Ravi,” Solas says again, and I realize I’m hyperventilating. I close my eyes and focus on my breath for a moment, blood thundering in my ears. And Cassandra’s voice, bitter, ringing.

“It didn’t work.”

“Cheer up, Seeker,” Varric advises from my right. I hear Bianca click as he latches her (it? her.) back onto his back. “It’s a lot smaller, at least. Sparky over there did something, at least.”

It didn’t work? I open my eyes and crane my neck to look at the sky. The Breach still hangs over the tower of the temple, but Varric’s right; it’s smaller, and swirling slower, and it doesn’t hurt my eyes to look at anymore. I take a deep breath, though my lungs (and ribs, and entire body) ache like hell, and slump into a more comfortable position.

“What now?” I ask no one in particular. It still hasn’t quite sunk in, I think dazedly. I’m in a fictional world. It really doesn’t seem to be a dream, what with the blistering pain and all. An elf is trying to comfort me, and a dwarf is calling my baby sister weird names. My baby sister, who may be dying and/or may be the only one who can save the world.

This was not how I’d planned to spend my winter break.

“Now,” Solas says, standing up, “we rest, and recuperate – and soon, we try again.”

  


Aliyah doesn't wake up.

I'm beside myself with worry by the time we get back to Haven, my sister's unconscious body slung unceremoniously onto the back of a pack-horse. I'm beside her bedside for a long while, staring at her in the low candlelight, mind whirling. Dragon Age. Elves, dwarves, magic. Magic! Dementors, and Pride demons, and -- Lord above, is this a fever dream? Have I been drugged? Am I the hero of some really bad self-insert fanfiction or something? I definitely remember reading a couple (okay, a lot) of those in middle school. Maybe that's it. I feel... surreal, the now-bandaged gash on my ribs throbbing dully, my eyes unfocusing and refocusing on the candleflame.

When someone knocks and opens the door, I near about jump out of my skin.

It's Varric; still blood-stained and weary-looking, magnificent chest hair still well on display, Bianca nowhere to be seen. "So, now that Cassandra's out of earshot, you holding up all right?" he asks, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it. "After all, you and your sister went from being two of the most wanted criminals in Thedas to being the chosen of Andraste. Most people would have... spread that out over a little more than one day."

I get the rest of the way out of my chair awkwardly, resisting the urge to clutch at my chest in surprise. "For a given value of all right, I guess," I offer. "You're right -- it's all just a little overwhelming. I still feel like I woke up five minutes ago in a place I've never been before." I rub my forehead. "Or that I'm still waiting to wake up."

He quirks a little smile. "I can imagine." _No, you can't_ , I think sardonically. "Well, all right is good enough for now. A few of us are gathering in the tavern. Join us for a drink, yeah? Toast the closing -- well, narrowing -- of the Breach, get to know you a little. Maker knows I need an ale or two after all that."

It's hard to mistrust the only friendly face I've seen here so far. "Yeah," I say, "okay. Someone will get me when Aliyah wakes up?"

"Sure thing."

"All right." I straighten a bit, tug down the hem of my ratty sweatshirt, and follow the dwarf outside.

I realize my mistake about two meters from the door, when Varric oh-so-gently starts to interrogate me.

"Where did you say you were from, again?"

I stammer, scramble to remember what Aliyah had said. "Um -- York. North-west of Rivain." No, wait. "N-north-east."

"Huh," Varric says, eyes gleaming. "They all dress like you two there? What material is that?" He gestures to my jeans.

"Um, yeah. It's denim, it's a cotton blend." Probably. Who knows what my ten-buck H&M jeans are actually made of. "Good for, uh, slightly warmer weather than here."

Varric shudders. "Makes sense. Practically anywhere's warmer than here, especially up north."

Huh, okay. So we're in the southern hemisphere. "Where are we, exactly?" I try. Can't hurt too much to ask.

His eyebrows go up, but he answers easily, "Haven. We're kind of in the nowhere-lands of the Frostbacks, just east of the border with Orlais."

"Ah, okay." I nod sagely, trying to act like I know what he's talking about. "Uh, hey, is that the tavern?"  
"Yep! C'mon, I'll buy you a drink." He nods towards the door, and I dart to open it as quickly as I can. How he's not shivering with that thin silk-whatever blouse, I don't know; I'm freezing my own ass off.

Varric works the tavern (beautifully, blessedly warm) like he owns it, ushering me into a chair near the fire by a group of soldiers and setting a flagon in front of me before I can so much as say "what kind of beer do you have on tap?" The bartender gives him a shimmy and a wink along with his own tankard, and he drops into his chair with a sigh of relief. I raise my tankard to him in a toast and take a cautious sip, letting my eyes flick around to take in my new surroundings.

The tavern is small, crowded, ill-lit, and toasty warm next to the fire. Unlike the smooth lines of modern architecture and low-quality video games, though, everything is rough-hewn wood and ropes of twine and splinters. It's like a New York hipster's paradise.

The ale, on the other hand, is horse piss.

Varric laughs out loud at the expression on my face. "You get used to it," he tells me. I side-eye him a little, but take another swallow.

Yep, still horrible.

"So -- Ravi, was it?" It strikes me for a second just how American his accent is, especially compared to Solas' vaguely-Welsh and Cassandra's... whatever that accent is. He doesn't pronounce my name wrong, but he chews on the R like someone from the midland USA. I nod at him, and take another sip. "What's your story? No Circle, no elves or dwarves -- is York some kind of free-for-all, all-human paradise?"

"Kind of," I say, then wince, thinking about present-day NYC. "No, it's sometimes more like a free-for-all, multi-racial dystopia. We do have, um, the Circle, and I think there are some elves and dwarves there, I just... was never a mage before now?" I hope against hope that I'm not saying anything out of the ordinary. Where's Aliyah's encyclopaedic knowledge of all things Bioware when you need it?

(Oh, right. Practically comatose. I take another gulp of horse piss.)

"Dwarves in your Circle, huh?" Varric says. Aw, crud. It's too late now. I just smile and shrug. "Ever hear of that, Chuckles?"

I whip around, and the BMEG is standing right frickin' behind me. Solas. Chuckles. Whoever.

"I have heard tell of a dwarf who studies as an arcanist at the Circle on Lake Calenhad," Solas says smoothly, sliding onto the bench next to me. I shift away a little uncomfortably, feeling hemmed in. "I had thought that she was the only case in this generation, though."

"No," I say quickly, seizing that as an out. "There's just one guy -- dwarf -- who's at the Circle in York. I think. I don't know, I've, uh, never met him, since I wasn't a mage then."

"Interesting," Solas says. I have no idea what the fuck to make of that. "I was wondering," he continues, though, and I tense. "How can one 'become' a mage, do you think? An effect of the Breach, or a latent ability just now surfacing?"

I shake my head. "I have no idea. Like I said, I don't know anything about magic." A thought occurs to me, and I add, "I suppose I'll have to read up on magical theory now? Is there a library here?" Maybe

I can also read up a little on... history? Anthropology of... modern cultural norms? Is there a book of _common knowledge everyone over the age of ten knows_?

"There is," Solas says, "in the undercroft of the chantry. You are a scholar?"

"Just a student," I say. "I'm working on my Ph.D. in women's and gender studies at Columbia right now, so I'll hopefully be recognized as a real 'scholar' in a couple years."

Solas is looking at me funny. Shit, I went on autopilot. Every college student, grad or undergrad, has that spiel at the ready whenever someone asks what they do, and I... just gave it to a suspicious elven mage. Doing great so far, Ravi, doing great.

"If you study gender, then," Solas asks, "is that why you masquerade as a man?"

What the shit.

I goggle at him for a second, mind totally blank. Not only is that what he focuses on among all the nonsense I probably just spouted at him, but --

"Masquerade? I... I am a man!" Okay, maybe more of a boy, but at least a guy. A person of the male persuasion. Male. Totally. Authentically. "Wh -- what are you insinuating?"

Varric cocks an eyebrow. "Oh? Chuckles over here was going on about how any mage worth his salt could tell your spirit is female."

"I was not _going on_ ," Solas says, "merely speculating." He's a lot calmer than I am, at least. "Is it because you are -- what is the more-used word for it? Aqun-athlok?"

"Most non-qunari usually just say transgender," Varric offers, rather more enlighteningly. "That's what Fenris does, when he bothers to explain further than a scowl."

I think my eyes are about popping out of my skull.

No one knows I'm trans. I've only just come out to my best friends, and they've only just started using different pronouns for me -- for crying out loud, I haven't even told Aliyah! I've been so... uncertain, almost frightened that I'm making it all up, that I'm wrong. And now, apparently, these people in a Middle-Ages-esque society can... wave their magic wand and tell me what my gender is?  
I slump forward and rest my head in my hands. I can't quite decide whether this is the most invasive thing I've ever experienced, or the most validating.

(Both? Both. Both is good.)

"Way to go," I hear Varric say over my head. "Think you scared her, Chuckles."

Her. What the fuck.

"It's -- it's fine," I say, raising my head, still wide- and wild-eyed. "I'm just... it's not really... accepted in... York." I'm stumbling over my words. I don't really know what I'm saying. "I've never -- no one's ever really seen me as a woman?"

"Interesting," Solas says again.

"Hey, no harm meant," Varric assures me. "I'll drop it if you like. Whatever makes you comfortable."

"No, I -- you can use she/her for me," I'm saying, mouth working without my complete consent. I don't know if I'm ready for that, but I also feel suddenly like I won't have a chance to change my mind.

"You're right, I do -- I identify as a woman, I just haven't ever... been open about it?"

"Things must really be different in York," says Solas, tone completely neutral.

"You have no idea," I mumble. Jesus. I need to change the subject before my heart beats out of my chest. It's the exact same feeling I got when I came out to Vi and Peg, except that this time I'm not really... coming out. More like being shoved out.

Anyway. "Anyway," I squeak. "Library? Magical theory? Anything like that to be had here?"

Varric takes pity on me. "There's a few shelves in the basement of the Chantry," he says. "Not a big collection, but it has Hard in Hightown, so it can't be all bad." He winks at me. I have no idea what he's talking about.

"Right," I say. I take one last swallow of the horrible beer, stand up abruptly. My chair screeches out from under me. "Right. Thanks. For the tip, and the, uh, drink." My hand flies to my pocket, and a thought occurs to me. "Shit. What do I owe you? I don't have any money."

"My treat," Varric says, waving a hand. "Don't worry about it. You can pay me back with stories about York sometime."

Uh-huh, that's likely. I nod noncommittally at him, shoot a glance at Solas, and flee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, listen. i never claimed that this was anything, anything at all, but pure self-indulgence and wish-fulfillment. if you're not about it, don't bother letting me know. (if you see a grammar/spelling flub, go ahead and let me know. that's fine. i just don't really care for value judgments on the 'quality' of this.) if you are about it, though, please do let me know!! i aim to fulfill not only my wishes but those of other trans people in the fandom. :-)
> 
> and hey -- i'm going to try and update by the end of next week (instead of in a year). if you like it, please feel free to subscribe, and any comment you have would encourage me immensely!

**Author's Note:**

> As a disclaimer: I am not Muslim, trans female, or an experienced writer. I am, however, Bengali, non-binary, and just someone who really wanted a hijabi Inquisitor and a trans main character. This is not to say that this isn't totally a self-insert fic. I'm trying to avoid that, though -- if you see anything super Mary-Sue-ish, let me know. I'm doing this for fun and catharsis; if you like it, welcome aboard! I'd love concrit and comments and anything you have for me.  
> This is gonna start out slowly, but I promise it'll go faster once events stop happening in such quick succession!


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